Jonathan Hill recently gave a most enjoyable, elliptical talk about his 'Weather Architecture' project, which - even in the asides when he left his script - was almost identical to a talk he delivered a year ago in the same venue. In his introduction, he talked of how, for architects, producing books is like producing designs: they overlap, are redigested and regurgitated, helping their creator develop an attitude to a body of work. It sounded like Peter Smithson, who would overlap and reiterate so inventively, saying that to layer one new idea a year on to his existing store was quite enough for anyone. The sepia cover of Hill's new book is directly reproduced from his first (The Illegal Architect, 1998), that 'serious yet funny' project (in Adrian Forty's words) which reflected on the RIBA. The 'Illlegal' project is illustrated here once more, as is 'Weather', Hill's charming and thoughtful conceit on the cloned Barcelona Pavilion, again very often in the words of his last volume (The Subject is Matter, AJ 14.2.02).
展开▼
